Israel indiscriminately bombed civilians during Lebanon war, a new report

Friday September 07, 2007 10:08 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies saed at imemc dot org

A comprehensive report released Thursday by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch found that Israeli forces disproportionately attacked civilians during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last year. But the most important finding of the study is that Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters were hiding among civilians was false.

The 249-page investigation, titled “Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War” is the most detailed inquiry into the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War to date. And while the group's research did find violations of the laws of war by both sides, the most egregious violations were carried out by the Israeli invaders.

The Israeli government has long justified its killing of 1,109 Lebanese people during the Israeli invasion last summer by saying that Hezbollah fighters were using civilians as cover. Although Israel claims that 600 of the 1,109 deaths were Hezbollah fighters, the researchers at Human Rights Watch found that only 250 of those killed on the Lebanese side were fighters with Hezbollah.

160 Israelis were killed in the war - many of them invading soldiers.

"The main conclusion that Human Rights Watch reached is that the Israeli government claim that civilian deaths in southern Lebanon were due mainly to Hezbollah hiding behind civilians is false,"said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

According to the report, the Israeli military’s repeated failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants cannot be explained as mere mismanagement of the war or a collection of mistakes. The evidence suggests that Israeli officials must have known that their assumption regarding the absence of civilians in southern Lebanon was erroneous. Said Director Kenneth Roth, “Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians. Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.”

In addition, the report shows that the Israeli military attacked many private homes of alleged Hezbollah members during the war, as well as various civilian Hezbollah-run institutions such as schools, welfare agencies, banks, shops and political offices.

In the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, Israeli warplanes attacked the offices of Hezbollah’s charitable organizations and its parliamentarians, its research center, and multi-story residential apartment buildings in areas considered supportive of Hezbollah. Statements by Israeli officials strongly suggest that the Israeli army deliberately hit entire neighborhoods because they were seen as pro-Hezbollah, rather than specific Hezbollah military targets as required by the laws of war.

Israeli military officials denied the findings of the report, and continued to blame Hezbollah for the Israeli military's attacks on civilian populations during the war.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.